Tag Archives: young adult

Suicide is a sensitive subject, and one that people often shy away from, even if it has touched their own lives personally. However, as someone whose life was deeply impacted by a loss due to suicide, I try to be open about its reality and unafraid to tackle it head on. In the spirit of that, I want to share the following two videos I made about young adult novels I’ve read recently that really handled the subject well in my opinion, and will give readers plenty of food for thought:

If you enjoyed these videos, please subscribe to my channel on YouTube and leave a comment here or there!

I decided to do the 2016 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge this year! I have already started and plan to make YouTube videos each month to update which categories I have completed in the challenge. If you would like to do the challenge with me, please visit the official POPSUGAR page where you can print off a copy of the checklist. Don’t worry about whether you will be able to complete every category or not. This is simply for fun and to get all of us to read books we otherwise might not. You could even do it as a family if you wish!

I am thrilled to see the start of another school year because that means I get to do what I love best, visit schools and share my love of literature with kids and young adults! This year will be especially happy for me because I am visiting my old stomping ground. Although most of the school author visits I conduct are close to the Dayton, Ohio area (where I currently live), this year I will be going back to my hometown of Muncie, Indiana!

Why does this excite me so much? Well, some of it is plain, old-fashioned pride. I loved growing up in Muncie and am excited to return there to share my two published books. I am also thrilled to get the chance to be the featured author and speaker at Muncie’s Young Author’s Conference. This is pretty much a dream come true for me since I went to the Young Author’s Conferences myself as a child and dreamed of someday being an author just like those I met there…and now, I have achieved that!

I also plan to visit my old elementary school and my old high school (among other school visits). I just can’t imagine how it will feel to be back within those walls of the schools I once loved so much. I really hope to be able to inspire the kids there and show them that we all have the potential to make our dreams come true!

Just wanted to post a quick note to let all my fans and friends know that my brand new young adult poetry book, “Not Afraid to Be Real”, is currently available as a FREE Kindle download today, tomorrow and Saturday (July 26th-July 28th). This is a great chance to try the book out without having to lay any money down! If you do download and read the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or sharing the book link with all your friends and family on Facebook & Twitter! I appreciate all the support you guys have given me in the past and hope you enjoy my latest creation!

PS. Not only did I write all the poems in “Not Afraid to Be Real”, but I also took the photos that are included in the book and even came up with the idea for the cover design. So in many ways, this truly was my baby!

This promo might be coming a bit late since my new young adult poetry book, “Not Afraid to Be Real” has been available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble since July 11th, but things have been kind of hectic here. Anyhow, I am really proud of this book. I took the photos that accompany the poems, wrote the poems and even came up with the idea for the book cover image (although my publisher liason, Neal Wooten, was the one who had the artistic talent to turn my idea into artwork).

The idea behind “Not Afraid to Be Real” was simple. I wanted to write poetry that has real heart, real literary value and above all, actually makes sense to people. I have always been turned off by poetry that is confusing or long winded, so I didn’t want to put my readers through that. The finished product is a down-to-earth collection of meaningful poems about life, love, grief and inspiration, with a dash of humor and weirdness thrown in just for fun.

Of course, I think the best way to decide if you want to buy a book or not is to sample it, so feel free to check out this FREE SAMPLE from my Facebook fan page, containing four full-length poems from “Not Afraid to Be Real”!

Instead of just reviewing one book in this post, I have decided to go ahead and do short reviews of the first two books in the Alice Parker’s Adventures fantasy series. This new series, written by Nicola Palmer, is a fun foray into magic, adventure and mystery for middle grade readers and young adults. It is an original and interesting take on the whole “fairy” genre that is so popular with kids and teens right now. So without further ado…here are my reviews of the first two books.

Book #1 – Alice Parker’s Metamorphosis

I have always loved the fantasy genre, but will admit to being picky about what series I will actually take the time to read. I look for books that are well-written, plausible (even fantasy needs to be believable) and most importantly, I want stories with characters that aren’t flat or boring. I am happy to say that Metamorphosis met and even surpassed my expectations.

From the moment I started reading this book, I actually found it rather hard to put down. The plot was engaging and carried enough suspense to keep me reading clear to the end, while the characters became almost like friends to me. I felt like I actually got to know Alice and her crew personally, which in my opinion is the ultimate aim of any fiction. I especially enjoyed the relationship between Alice and her brother, Thomas.

I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but I will say that I was also very impressed with the author’s ability to create a new world that readers will want to call their own. This is a book that I can wholeheartedly recommend to kids and teens (or even adults if you like a good fantasy story).

Book #2 – Alice Parker & the Mind Magician

The second book in the Alice Parker series picks up a few months after the events of the first book, but the transition is done well enough that readers pick up on the storyline without skipping a beat. It quickly becomes apparent that the trials Alice is going to face in this sequel are even darker and more dangerous than the hurdles she overcame in the first book.

As the title suggests, much of this book’s battles are waged in the human mind, a very dangerous and disturbing scenario. Without getting preachy or slowing down the plot, this book manages to address some fairly sinister concepts, such as mind control and the corruption that often accompanies having too much power. I was wondering throughout the course of the book how the author was going to manage to bring the plot to a satisfying conclusion, but was pleasantly surprised to see that she managed to do just that.

After finishing the second book I was actually a little bit sad that it was over. I am definitely looking forward to the third book and hope that there will be many more volumes to come!

Lately, as I have been working with my editor to get my first book for young adults ready for publication, I have been thinking a lot about what is ok and isn’t ok to put in young adult literature. My new YA book is a poetry collection, and while it certainly isn’t riddled with sexual stuff or bad language, there is one poem where I use the word “damn” and one where I use the word “sperm”.

Now, I want to state up front I am not really a bad girl. I have never been one to turn to bad language, especially since I am around kids all the time and believe in setting a good example. In the poem where I used the word “damn”, I just felt that any lesser of an expression would look weak and stupid. The mood of that particular poem is serious and heartfelt, with the person speaking coming from a place of desperation. Saying “darn” just wouldn’t be honest to the depth of the feelings represented.

As for the use of the word “sperm”, it isn’t even really used in a sexual way, but more in a technical way. As in, the thing that eventually becomes a human baby is a sperm. Surely, no one could balk at that, right? But a part of me wonders. I know some parents and teachers can be so conservative and protective of their kids that they run from any sign of impropriety. Plus, many kids that aren’t even in the young adult age bracket still read young adult books. I know 10 and 11 year olds that have read “The Hunger Games”, which I’m sure is geared for an older audience.

I know this quandary of mine might seem ridiculous. After all, in a world where many young adult books are laced with the “f-bomb”, gruesome violence and descriptive sex scenes, why in the world would I worry about something like “damn” or “sperm”? I guess it’s just because I always tend to worry about what parents and teachers think. Maybe too much. Of course, it could be that I am just nervous because this is my first foray into the young adult literature world.

So what do you guys think? How much is too much in young adult literature? And how young is too young to read young adult literature?